1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to surgical instruments and, more particularly, to surgical graspers for grasping tissue and for determining characteristics of the grasped tissue in preparation for performing various surgical procedures.
2. Background of Related Art
Colorectal surgery sometimes requires anastomosis, which involves resecting a piece of diseased bowel tissue and creating a new connection between presumably two healthy bowel segments. Typically, before performing the anastomosis, the amount of tissue to be resected is estimated using visual indicia of the bowel. The goal is to preserve as much healthy tissue as possible while at the same time removing all of the diseased tissue.
A risk involved in performing an anastomotic procedure is anastomotic leaks, which can be a serious complication that can result in an acute life-threatening condition. The anastomotic leaks are typically caused by a failure to resect all of the diseased tissue. Current methods used in estimating the amount of tissue to be resected during an anastomotic procedure are sometimes inadequate in preventing all anastomotic leaks.
Accordingly, a need exists for surgical instruments that can sense, either sequentially or simultaneously, a multitude of parameters and factors of the bowel tissue to aid a surgeon in performing a more successful anastomotic surgical procedure.